Madeline is a UPA short film released in 1952, shortly after their 1951 short Gerald McBoing-Boing proved an overwhelming success and won an Oscar. Madeline is a sweet, simple little story about a young Parisian girl with a knack for mischief and her adventures at a Catholic boarding school. Adapted from Ludwig Bemelmans’ picture book series, and although only the first book was published at the time, the team had a “real love” for it, according to film director Robert (Bob, Bobe, Bobo) Cannon. (How UPA Made the Very First ‘Madeline’ Cartoon) The animation team on Madeline was made up of a small handful of people; color artist Jules Engel, animator Chris K. Ishii, animator Bill Melendez, animator Frank Smith, and uncredited assistant animator Paul Bartel.
The animation is simple but effective. The main character group (the twelve little girls and Miss Clavel) all wear the same color outfits (almost always red). The backgrounds are watercolored in an energetic, illustrative way that contrasts the simple inked character designs, allowing them to both be distinctive and fit into the world. It makes for an appropriate adaption from the expressionist roots of Ludwig Bemelmans’ original story.
The next short of my choice is “No Smoking”, the pilot episode to the animated series Cow and Chicken, first airing as part of the What A Cartoon! showcase on November 12, 1995. “No Smoking” was storyboarded and directed by creator David Feiss, animated by himself at Hannah-Barbara Studios, and written by himself, Sam Keith, and Pilar Feiss. In the pilot, Chicken gets caught smoking a cigarette by his sister Cow. While this is happening, The Devil (Known as the “Red Guy” for the rest of the series) is watching the siblings from his lair and announces that he loves causing disasters and dragging people who make bad decisions down to hell. The Devil offers Chicken a pack of cigarettes and proceeds to drag him to hell for underage smoking. Chicken is tortured via giant cigarette smoking, but is rescued in the end by Cow.
Cow and Chicken is a great example of how the artistic rebellion of one era can branch off and influence the next. Looking back, the influence of UPA’s cartoon modern style on the “wild” cartoons of the 90s feels pretty obvious; the bold colors, clean lines, stylized designs, strong shapes, and exaggerated lines of action are some things both eras share. Are these two shorts incredibly different? Yes. But the parts they share, both visible and invisible tie them together. Though Madeline is simpler, both in plot and animation, it has those bold colors and exaggerated choices in posing and composition that we can also see in Cow and Chicken. It’s very intriguing to look at how different eras’ styles can drip down and inspire each new “next big trend”.
List of UPA cartoons – Wikipedia
The World of UPA (Part 1 of 3)
How UPA Made the Very First ‘Madeline’ Cartoon
Exploring Art and Color with Madeline
The Enduring Delight of Ludwig Bemelmans’s ‘Madeline’ | American Art | Sotheby’s
Cow and Chicken | The Cartoon Network Wiki | Fandom
Cow and Chicken (TV Series 1997–1999) – IMDb
1950’s Cartoon style – @serioussamuel on Tumblr
Amid Amidi’s Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation
Project MUSE – Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation (review)